Infosys to Hire 300 US Grads
As part of its globalization plan, the Indian software giant will hire graduates fresh out of college in the U.S. and the U.K.
Infosys Technologies, a major Indian technology consultant, announced Monday it would recruit 300 college graduates from universities across the United States this year.
The first batch of 100 recruits will be brought to India, undergo training at the company’s development centers across India for six months before returning to work for Infosys in the U.S.
No Indian company has hired foreigners in such large numbers at one time. TCS, Wipro and Satyam, all rivals to Infosys, hire locally in the countries they operate in, such as China, Malaysia, and of course in the U.S., but their numbers pale in comparison with what Infosys is planning to do.
“We firmly believe that the future success of Infosys lies in its ability to create an environment that is open to people from different nationalities and ethnicities,” said Infosys Chairman Narayana Murthy, the company’s chief mentor.
With this move, Infosys will mirror what global rivals Accenture and IBM have always been doing. Both of those companies have huge numbers of Indians working for them in India.
“It’s a smart move,” said Partha Iyengar, vice president of research at Gartner in India. He has been following the software industry’s growth in India for over a decade and believes such an initiative is just the beginning.
As Indian software services companies innovate and move up the value chain in their offerings to customers, they need to have a deep understanding of the local markets.
Local Presence Needed
“No longer will it suffice to have H1B visa holders from India work onsite at client premises and then move the work to India. These companies will need a big local presence,” said Mr. Iyengar.
Infosys began recruiting for entry-level software engineer positions at top universities in the U.S. following a successful program that brought 10 young Americans to work in Bangalore last year. Applications were admitted from all majors, including liberal arts, for the software engineering position.
Along the same lines, a pilot program will take place to recruit students from universities in the United Kingdom. In 2007, about 25 students will be hired from the U.K.
TV Mohandas Pai, director of human resources and education and research, said: “We plan to run a pilot at top universities in the U.K. this year for 25 positions.”
While this is the first time Infosys will recruit fresh graduates for permanent positions, students from schools such as Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, Harvard Business School, and the Said Business School of Oxford have been competing to visit Infosys’ Bangalore campus for InStep, the Infosys internship program.
Last year InStep received over 11,000 applications for 100 positions. InStep recruits students from 82 universities in 18 countries to come to India for eight to 24 weeks to learn as an intern at Infosys.
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